Brooklyn dad fatally shot while sitting in SUV with friends near Queens expressway, leaving family devastated

A 51-year-old Brooklyn dad was shot to death early Sunday sitting in a Mercedes SUV with three friends — leaving relatives desperate to know the reason for the ambush.

Sherwood (Prince) Beverly was blasted in the head as he sat in the passenger seat of the gray Mercedes-Benz SUV stopped at a red light on the service road to the Van Wyck Expressway near North Conduit Ave. in South Ozone Park, Queens, about 5:15 a.m., police said.

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"He was a beautiful guy," said family friend Willie Porters, 54. "They need to catch whoever did this. You can't just go around shooting people on the expressway."

Sherwood Beverly, 51, was shot and killed as he sat inside a Mercedes SUV in South Ozone Park on Sunday. (Courtesy Beverly Family)

The Mercedes driver, a 50-year-old man, was grazed in the neck. A 50-year-old woman in the backseat was shot through the left shoulder, police said. A second woman, 44, escaped the fusillade.

The spray of gunfire shattered most of the vehicle's windows and punctured the front windshield.

The deadly shooting shattered most of this Mercedes-Benz SUV's windows and the front windshield early Sunday. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)

The shooters fled in a dark-colored SUV.

Beverly, a father of two, lived in Brownsville and worked at a gym.

The incident took place on the exit ramp from the Van Wyck Expressway near North Conduit Ave. in South Ozone Park (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)

Beverly didn't party frequently but had been out late catching up with old friends at Moka nightclub in Richmond Hill, relatives said.

"He didn't have a beef with nobody," said his heartbroken nephew, Anthony Beverly, 28. "He didn't drink. He never went out."